


Brotherhood

by Durindil_Moonraven



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 1987)
Genre: Gen, Tissue Warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-03
Updated: 2014-08-03
Packaged: 2018-02-11 14:33:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2071866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Durindil_Moonraven/pseuds/Durindil_Moonraven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Mike begins to question his usefulness to the others, he leaves the lair.  Will he ever return?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brotherhood

**Author's Note:**

> I own no one and nothing save for the plotline.

The four turtles dropped down into their sewer level lair after a long night of fighting the usual bad guys that New York oozes with each evening. The string of petty robbers trying to get away through the sewers had escalated recently as if the thieves believed that it was a safe avenue of escape.

 

“These genius’ just keep getting dumber every year,” Raph grumbled as he stretched a sore shoulder muscle. “I swear the next one will just run right through our living room.”

 

“Yeah. Right in front of the T.V.” Mike piped up. “They’ll probably try to take that too as they make their way through.”

 

“God forbid,” Don said, “that Mike should miss his cartoons, right Mike?”

 

“Hey! I’ll have you know that I watch more than just cartoons,” Mike argued, offended.

 

‘Yeah, can’t forget the animal channel and funny video shows,” Leo joined in the teasing.

 

The rest of the brothers laughed as Mike turned slightly red. That really was all he watched, he realized.

 

“I’m going to fill Master Splinter in on tonight’s raids,” Leo said as they reached their rooms, “and then turn in. You guys better get some sleep as well.”

 

“I will after I finish analyzing this new sample of unknown chemical I picked up from one of the guys. It may be some new kind of narcotic or other poison that we may need to know about later. I can’t wait to see what it looks like on a molecular level,” Don was practically drooling.

 

The other turtles rolled their eyes at Don’s love affair with his scientific do-dads that they were never allowed to touch. Nothing ever made Don quite as happy as tinkering with his chemistry set. “Like a kid at Christmas,” Raph muttered, but the others could hear the amusement underlying the statement. “I, on the other hand, have to get started on the repairs to the Shellcycle. I’ll be up thinking about it all night if I don’t get on it now.”

 

Mike said, “Well, I’m going to…uh…”

 

“Just go to bed, Mike,” Leo said. “We’ll see you in the morning.’

 

Mike stopped short and stood in the hall as his brothers headed to their repective after-battle chores. He felt brushed off and he went to his room with slumped shoulders and a thoughtful look on his face.

 

**********

 

Mike sat on his bed and thought about what had happened that night.

 

_The turtles were out scouring the sewers around the warehouse district by the bay when the alarm of a building went off above their heads. They ran to the nearest ladder and made their way to street level just as three masked men came out of the warehouse on their left. Donnie, Raph, and Leo jumped into the fray as the robbers tried to get to their boat in the bay. Mike knew that they could take care of themselves and headed into the building trying to see if there were any more of the group hiding out._

 

_Inside the warehouse was a huge laboratory setup that would have made Donatello go into convulsions of jealousy. Looking around, Mike heard muffled calls coming from a closet in the hall off the main room. He made his way there and found three scientists tied up inside. He freed them and asked if there were any other people in the building. The three said no, they were the only ones working that night. Mike made sure that they got out and then went to see how his brothers were doing with their perps. They had taken care of the situation, and Donnie had already found the lab and was poking his flat nose into all the nooks and crannies trying to figure out what the scientists had been working on. He grabbed a small sample and the four headed out._

 

_On the way back to the lair, another alarm sounded and the turtles headed underground and toward the sound. The next hit happened to be a weapons warehouse that the nearby airforce base used for outdated models of guns, bombs, and the like. Inside, they found another group of men trying to make off into the sewers with a variety of weaponry. Again, Don, Raph, and Leo jumped in and took care of a majority of the men, leaving one little guy with a set of car keys, obviously to the getaway vehicle, for Mike to detain. After questioning the driver, they found that he was just told to drive the goods to an address in a small town outside of the city proper. They tied him up and left him for the cops, whom Mike called with the phone on the wall._

 

_The night was quiet after that and so they headed home with the sunrise._

 

_***********_

 

Mike thought about what he had contributed to the team that night and found it wasn’t much. The only thing it seemed that he good at was freeing the hostages and making phone calls. He thought about practicing more so that he could get in on the action and decided that maybe he could spar with one of the guys the next day. Satisfied with his decision, he fell asleep.

 

**Part Two**

 

The next night couldn’t come quickly enough for Mike as he was excited about implementing his new plan to become more useful to the group. He headed out to find Leo first. He found him talking with Master Splinter about the possible connections between the two heists the night before. Mike decided that he would try to find Leo later after he was done talking. He then tried to find Don, but he was busy analyzing his results of the chemical tests he had run. He shooed Mike away and closed the door behind him. Mike then tried to find Raph, but he was still busy trying to get the Shellcycle to run.

 

Now feeling very frustrated, Mike headed into the workout room to take up his problems with the punching bag. After about an hour of that, Mike was bored and hungry so he went out for the brothers’ usual staple meal: pizza. When he returned, he split the pizza into equal shares and headed back to his brothers.

 

At Mike’s knock, Donnie called for him to come in. Mike did and saw that Don had his face pressed against his microscope. “Where did you want your share?” he asked his older brother.

 

“Hmm? Oh, just put it on the table there somewhere. I’ll get to it in a minute.”

 

Mike looked around for a clear spot on the lab table and found one near some samples of bacteria. He put it own as carefully as he could, but when trying to balance multiple plates of pizza in your arms, grace becomes difficult if not down right impossible. Mike demonstrated this principle perfectly as the plate swept the corner of the table clear of its contents.

 

Donnie’s head shot up as he heard the crashes. Without turning around, Don said in a strained voice, “That better not have been my samples that have taken me 6 months to cultivate, Mike. Tell me that they aren’t. Please.”

 

“Uh….sorry?” was Mike’s only response.

 

“You idiot!” Don spun aorund and saw the destruction for the first time. “Those were rare specimens! They aren’t going to be easy to replace and I’ll have to start the project all over again!” Don was getting red in the face, which was quite an accomplishment for a green turtle, as Mike couldn’t help but point out to him.

 

“Get out! Get out! Stay away from my experiments!” Don was livid as he shoved Mike out of the room.

 

“And without even a ‘thank you’ for lunch either,” Mike sniffed. He was really sorry for having destroyed Don’s stuff. He didn’t know that they were really special, or even what they were for that matter. Don never let him into his lab often and never told Mike anything about his experiments. Knowing what to touch and what not to touch was a guess for Mike and he really didn’t mean to be so clumsy. Don should try carrying all this pizza at once and watch all Don’s peitre dishes at the same time.

 

Don hadn’t even asked if Mike was alright before he pushed him out the door. Mike had stepped in the broken glass and gotten a piece in his foot, but Don had worried more about his experiments than his brother’s foot.

 

Mike, feeling hurt, limped down the hall to Raph next. When he reached the garage, it was empty. Raph was probably out for a test drive of the cycle, Mike thought, and he started to leave Raph’s pizza on the tool chest for him for when he got back. Mike had just turned around when a roar from behind him startled him into tossing the pizza into the air where it landed right on top of the Shellcycle’s engine as Raph pulled into the garage. The hot cheese began to melt as the warm engine warmed it even more and Raph couldn’t save all the cheese before it dripped into the engine itself.

 

“AHHH! You idiot! I just had that cleaned! Now I have to dismantle the entire thing and clean in from the inside out! I really didn’t need more work today, Mike!” Raph was just as mad as Don had been earlier and just as red. “There is a very good reason why I tell you to stay out of the garage unless absolutely necessary and this is it! Get out, Mike, but leave some of that for me.”

 

“I’m sorry, Raph. You startled me when you came in and…”

 

“No more excuses! Give and get!” Raph grabbed one of the good plates of pizza and pushed Mike out of the garage.

 

“I just seem to be on a roll tonight,” Mike joked humorlessly.

 

Last stop was Leo’s room. Mike peeked in and saw his eldest brother meditating on his rug and decided to leave him alone. He left the last plate of pizza just inside Leo’s door and backed out quietly. He actually was able to get past one of his brothers without getting yelled at. This could be the high point of his night, pathetic as that thought was.

 

Mike headed to his room with an empty stomach, having lost his appetite during the bawling out his brothers had given him. He closed the door and leaned against it. He hissed as the piece of glass in his foot made itself known again. He limped over to the bed and looked at his foot. Life sucked, Mike thought. He tried to copy Leo and get some mediation in for the night, but found his thoughts turning back to his brothers’ earlier comments.

 

“Get out!”

 

“You idiot!”

 

“6 months!”

 

“No excuses!”

 

His head began to swim with the multitude of hateful comments that his brothers seemed to reserve just for him. The thought truly saddened him and he began to rethink why he stayed in the lair. He helped people, sure, but any of the others could do that. He had no special skills to contribute. Don had his brains and his science, Raph was the mechanic, and Leo was the leader. Mike…Mike just seemed to be the scapegoat, the clown, the one that others yelled at and teased and berated and ridiculed and…

 

His thoughts spiraled around and around until they started to spell out a solution. The only one that he had. He had to leave the lair.

 

 

**Part Three**

 

Mike began to think of how the best way to leave would be. He thought of telling his brothers how he felt, but realized they would probably just laugh it off or deny that they treated him that way, just to get him to stay. He couldn’t do that. He finally settled on leaving them a note. By the time they read it, he would be long gone…if they even bothered to notice that he was gone.

 

************

 

Later that night, Leo wandered around the lair trying to find Mike. He wanted to thank him for the pizza he had left while Leo had been meditating. He asked Splinter first, but he said that he hadn’t seen him all night. He then asked Don, but Don only snipped a ‘no’ and then turned back to his lab table. Leo headed to the garage next to ask Raph.

 

“Seen that klutz? Not around here lately. Idiot got cheese all over the engine of my bike! No, haven’t seen him for hours.”

 

Leo began to get more and more worried as the night progressed with no sight or sound of Mike. The T.V. was off and the stereo silent. The kitchen was bare and the workout room was empty. He finally went to Mike’s room and knocked on the door. “Mike? Are you there? I just wanted to say…”

 

Leo opened the door as he spoke, but stopped when he saw that the room was empty. Something was off though. He wasn’t sure what, but something was different, something not good. Leo looked around, but didn’t see anything. He was about to leave to talk to Master Splinter again when he noticed an envelope sitting on Mike’s made bed. That was it! Mike’s bed was always messy, but now it was clean. In fact, the whole room was clean. Leo began to worry in earnest. He picked up the envelope and saw the addressee.

 

“Guys!” he screamed as he ran from the room.

 

*********

 

Mike looked out the window of the bus as it rolled down the street. He had done it. He had left the lair. He was on his own now and the thought caused a flood on conflicting feelings to emerge. He was sad that he had had to leave, but happy that his brothers would be happier without him. He was scared as he had never been on his own before, yet exhilarated at the feeling of freedom. Would this work? Would he survive on his own? Only time would tell.

 

He saw the sign for Buffalo and decided to get off and stretch his legs when they got there. Maybe he could find something to soothe his growling stomach.

 

**************

 

“Guys!”

 

Leo’s call of fear and dismay pulled at the heartstrings of his master and brothers and they came running to see if Leo was hurt in any way. “What’s wrong?” they asked as they came close.

 

“Look at what I found in Mike’s room…” He handed them a plain white envelope and in Mike’s distinctive handwriting were the words: _To My Former Family._

 

“What?!” Don was curious as to what Mike could have meant by such a thing, while Raph didn’t act surprised. However, on the inside, Raph felt as though someone had ripped his heart out. He may not have showed it much, but Mike was his favorite brother and the one he looked after the most. Mike was the youngest, after all.

 

“What does he have to say, Leonardo?” Splinter’s calm voice broke into all their thoughts with its usual quiet authority.

 

Leo blushed. “I actually hadn’t opened it yet.”

 

“Then I think that that is our next course of action, don’t you?” Splinter raised a furry eyebrow.

 

“Of course.” Leo shook off his blush and ripped open the letter.

 

“Read it aloud,” Don urged.

 

“ _To my former family:_

 

_By the time you read this, I will be long gone. I never thought of leaving before, but recent events have proven to me that this is the best course of action._

 

_To Don: I’m sorry about your experiments. I never meant any harm and I would have tried to replace what you lost if you had only given me a chance. By the way, my foot is fine, the glass wasn’t deep.”_

 

“He was hurt? He never said…I never even asked…” Don’s heart was contracting with grief that he had more worried about his bacteria than his own flesh and blood.

 

“ _To Raph: I’m sorry about the bike. You startled me and it was an accident. I would have helped you to clean it if you had asked, or even if you hadn’t. I can guarantee that I’ll stay out of the garage now._

 

“I…didn’t mean that he should…damn…” Raph’s heart had sunk through the floor at the thought that Mike would take what he said so callously so seriously.

 

“ _To Leo: You probably found this when you came in to thank me for lunch. I know you well. Your honor and dedication to the team are what I admire most about you. You find our studies so easy to master and that’s something you can be proud of._

 

_I can’t see what I contribute to this group, really. Raph’s got the vehicles taken care of…Leo leads you all to victory…Don can do all his experiments…what do I do? Give you someone to laugh at? Someone to tease and yell at and take things out on and ignore when you deem it all right?_

 

_I don’t know how my leaving will affect any of you, if it does at all. You can protect the city without me. I have to find someplace where I’m appreciated for more than that._

 

_Don’t try to find me. You won’t._

 

_Your former brother,_

 

_Michelangelo”_

 

“Hmmm…” was all that Splinter had to say before he turned and left the three silent brothers to their thoughts.

 

***********

 

Mike decided that he liked Buffalo and didn’t mind when the bus broke down there. It would be another day before they could go on with their trip, but Mike didn’t mind. He headed into the city and tried to find someplace to relax for a few hours before he headed back to the hotel room he had rented. As he strolled down the walk, he spotted a club on the other side of the street that looked promising. He headed across to check it out.

 

“The Shadowed Rose,” Mike read as he got closer. “Sounds interesting.” He headed inside.

 

The dark smoky atmosphere seemed to welcome the weary turtle as found a seat in the shadows by the stage. The billboard announced the next act as a comedienne by the name of Angela. He wasn’t really in the mood for anything comedic, but stayed anyway and ordered a Coke to occupy his hands.

 

The lights dimmed and a fanfare began as the audience shouted and clapped their applause. _Apparently, this ‘Angela’ was a popular star around here_ , Mike thought.

 

“Hello, Buffalo!” A young woman of about 21 years of age came out onstage to greet the crowd. “Now, now, settle down…I know for a fact I’m not that good considering I’m still playing for you lot.” The crowd laughed politely. “But seriously, how do you all feel about the lovely weather Buffalo is having? One wonders if we need to bring in a politician or two for a little hot air in here.”

 

Mike didn’t think the girl was that bad and he started paying attention. Angela had the crowd busting many a gut by the time she left the stage and even Mike was feeling a little better. He decided that he wanted to meet her and headed backstage to see if he could catch her. He followed the back hallway down to a door that had a construction paper star on it and heard Angela’s voice on the other side. He knocked politely.

 

“Yes?” came the voice from inside.

 

“May I come in?” Mike asked.

 

“Sure, come on in. As long as you are armed with wit, not weapons.”

 

Mike chuckled as he inched the door open to greet the young comedy star. Angela greeted him with a polite nod as he closed the door behind him.

 

“Take off your coat and stay a while, stranger. I’m just going get my stage makeup off.” Mike hesitated and Angela laughed. “Come on, I’m not going to jump your bones or anything. My guy would skin me for it.”

 

Mike finally complied and Angela stopped dead. She blinked and her mouth opened, but nothing came out. Mike started to put his coat on and leave, but Angela stopped him. “No, please, don’t leave. I’m sorry, you merely startled me for a moment. Please, sit down. You look like someone that needs a listening ear.”

 

Mike thought about it and decided that she was right, so he sat down and got comfortable. Angela sat down at her makeup table and began to get out cotton balls and makeup remover and began to work on her face. “I have…what you might call…family problems,” Mike said.

 

“Don’t we all, luv, don’t we all,” quipped Angela.

 

Mike smiled and began to feel more comfortable. Before he knew it, the whole story had come out. The problems with Raph, Don, and Leo seemed to fade into the night the more Mike talked about them. “And I was going to volunteer, but…”

 

“And then they ignored…”

 

“But that wasn’t my intention when…”

 

Every problem seemed to just pour out of him and he sighed in relief when he finished. “Wow. That’s quite a family,” Angela remarked as he came out from behind the dressing screen. “So have you confronted them about this yet?”

 

“No, what’s the point? They would only blame me or tell me to stop whining or…”

 

“Hmm, seems as though you don’t have much faith in your brothers to put you first,” she observed. “It’s hard being the younger sibling…I know this well.”

 

“Well, it’s not so much being younger as it is feeling that they are so much more important than I am…like their skills are important and I can do is crack jokes and make phone calls to the cops once all the fun is over.” Mike stood up and kicked the chair over in frustration.

 

Angela just watched him pace the room and tucked her shoulder-length blonde-brown hair behind her ear. “You said that you don’t feel as though your skills are of any use to your brothers. What exactly are your best skills?”

 

“Laughter. I make people laugh, not like you do, on a stage, but I have my moments. I am trained in the art of chucking and I guess I’m alright there, but no one has time to practice with me, so I could be the worst anyone has ever seen and I wouldn’t know it.”

 

“Have you asked them? Do they know of your insecurities about your importance? They should really be the ones hearing this, you know.”

 

Mike looked at her and sighed. “I guess you’re right, but how? They don’t listen to me except when I crack a joke. We all have about the same amount of experience in general areas, but they wouldn’t listen to me or ask me my opinions on anything.”

 

“Have you tried learning the skills that you feel they find important? Helping Don in his lab or Raph in his garage?”

 

“They kick me out before I can ask. Raph even told me never to come back in at all.”

 

“Said in the heat of anger, no doubt? Can anything said in the heat of anger be taken for truth?” she waxed philosophical for a moment as Mike thought about it.

 

“Maybe not, but it still hurt,” Mike said.

 

“Understandable from anyone’s point-of-view, Mike. It does hurt, but hurt can be healed.”

 

“True.”

 

“Back to the subject of importance. I have a story to tell you. Remember when I said that I sympathized with you about your ‘youngest sibling’ plight? I’m the youngest in my family as well and I have two older sisters. One is a doctor that has created two new vaccines. The other is a police officer who has recently been commended for her work in the field. I’m just a comedienne. Is what I do any less important to the community?

 

“Look at the people in the audience tonight, Mike. Most are parents, single folk, people who have had hard days at work and need to have a laugh. They need to know that there is something in the world still worth laughing at. They need to know that not everything in the world is shit and horrors. My sister, the cop, is telling me all the time that my quips at home around the table are sometimes the only things that keep her sane when the day is full of murderers, rapists, thieves, and arsonists. When she sees the world at its worst, I can show her it at its best.

 

“Those of us who look at the world and can find something in it to laugh about are invaluable to the rest who can’t. You said that your brothers fight crime at night? They have to see a bit of what my sister does. They have to think that your lines are the best things to come back to, to get their minds off of the hell of the streets. How can you say that what we do isn’t valuable?”

 

Mike was stunned. He had never thought about any of this before. Not from this perspective, at least. He always thought that his brothers thought him useless, that they didn’t have any use for him other than to be a clown and to have someone to laugh at. He never saw himself as a valuable part of keeping his brothers’ sanity intact. Maybe he should…

 

“Do you think I should go back then?” Mike asked.

 

“That’s not for me to say, Mike. If you feel that there is someone or something to go back to, then you should go. If you can’t see yourself happy anywhere else, you should go. Home may be a place to hang to hang your hat, but it’s also where the heart is. Where is your heart right now, Mike? Is it here or is it back in New York?”

 

**************

 

Leo, Raph, and Don had been going about their days and nights as usual since Mike left, but nothing was the same. Their pace was slower, their smiles nonexistent, their hearts with Mike, far away in a place they couldn’t go, didn’t know. They wanted nothing more than to see him one more time and apologize, to hear him crack a joke, or listen to him complain about a bad movie. The T.V. and stereo had been off since he left, the resounding silence mourning the loss of the one who had, until recently, filled it.

 

Splinter had been quiet as well, but not for the same reasons as his students. Yes, he was sad that Michelangelo had left them, but he also understood why. He knew that the boys had been in the wrong, and he knew it was up to them to fix it. He just hoped they wouldn’t take too long to do it.

 

*************

Mike got back on the bus the next day feeling better about himself and his situation. He and Angela had talked for hours the night before and he had learned a lot about himself and his brothers, even though they hadn’t been there. After the club closed, they had gone back to Mike’s hotel room and talked late into the night and into the morning. Finally, after exchanging addresses, they split and Mike thanked Angela for her input. She smiled and promised to write often, even planning a trip to New York to do a gig one day soon.

 

Mike sighed and thought about home. Home. It was a word that for many people was a place, to others a person, to still others a time and date. For Mike, it was his brothers and his teacher. They were all he knew and he was happy there. They had raised him from a baby and taught him all he knew. How could he have thought he would get along without them? They were his life.

 

The bus arrived in New York during a rain storm. Mike climbed down into the sewers and headed for the lair, sloshing the whole way. As he neared the entrance, he saw the water leaking into the lair and wondered if his brothers were there. He peeked around the corner into the living room and saw all three of his brothers working to keep their things as dry as they could. They lived in a sewer, after all. Leo and Raph were working on saving the couch while Don was trying to lift the T.V. Mike whipped his head back around the corner when he heard his brothers start to talk.

 

“Hurry up with that T.V., Don!”

 

“It’s heavy!”

 

“Well, work harder. Mi…we may want it later.”

 

His brothers never yelled at each other like that! Usually, they worked together fine, no nit-picking and bickering. It seemed that maybe Angela had been right after all. Maybe they did need him.

 

“What’s the point?” Don put the T.V. down and sat in the water at his feet. “None of this means anything without Mi…without Mike here.”

 

Tears began to form in Mike’s eyes as he heard that. He was needed! He stepped around the corner and called to his brothers. “Hey, you guys do know that I keep rubber rafts and flippers in my closet just for this occasion, right?”

 

Three heads shot up as the familiar voice wafted through the lair once again. “MIKE!” they screamed and they abandoned their tasks to jump Mike and surround him in a group hug so big and close and hard that Mike would have passed out of lack of oxygen had he not been surrounded by his hard shell. Tears were running down all four turtles’ faces as they hugged and reassured themselves that they were four and whole once more.

 

************

 

Splinter had heard the yell and knew that his son was back. He settled back onto his bed and smiled. He would give them a while to talk before intruding. They had a lot of issues to work through.

 

************

 

After a long time of just sitting in the water and knowing that Mike was home, the brothers remembered that they had much to discuss. They looked around at each other and wondered who would go first. Leo cleared his throat and they all looked at him in anticipation of what he would say. “I don’t know what to say, Mike. You were right. I did find your letter. It happened just the way you said it would. I…never realized how much we influenced you. How much our careless comments and such affected you. I guess we should have been paying more attention.”

 

Raph piped up when Leo paused. “Yeah, Mikey. I never knew that you took what I said to heart. I didn’t mean for you to really leave. It felt awful when I realized that I had contributed to your leaving. I never thought…”

 

Don went next. “I’m sorry I never asked if you were hurt. It never occurred to me that you could be. It should have. You should have been first in my mind and you weren’t and it hurt that you would think that my experiments, no matter how rare and long they took, would be more important than you. The cultures took six months…you took 20 years. Nothing could ever be as precious to me as you or any of you, really,” he said looking around at his other brothers.

 

The others nodded their heads in agreement. “We never took the time to think when we would ignore or berate or yell at you that you would be hurt. Not enough to leave us. Don’t do that again, by the way. That hurt.” Leo wiped a tear from his cheek.

 

Mike looked around at his brothers and realized that they had spoken the truth. In leaving, he had found home. It was right where he left it. It always had been.


End file.
